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On my professional blog I often discuss the concept that all marketing, but especially social media marketing is in most cases successful when it leverages our human need for validation. Whatever form that validation takes is irrelevant, but almost  our entire existence as humans is based on that need. We are continually fighting to establish our existence and value in the shallow world that surrounds us. Ours brains/egos want to establish validity and seek validity constantly, because the alternative means that we are no longer the “individuals” we thought we were.

• Jobs
• Homes
• Cars
• Money
• Stardom
• Friendship
• Popularity
• Belittlement
• Abuse
• Pain
• Suffering
• Depression
• Happiness
• Sadness
• Perfection
• Power
• Superiority
• Love
• Marriage
• Divorce
• Identity
• Peace
• Belonging
• Children
• Status
• Grief
• Entertainment
• Cookies
• Drugs
• Toys
• Freedom
• Office
• Privacy
• ……

Freedom from me is God.

EVERYTHING we seek is the source of ALL of our pain.

Every time you see it as or after you do it, you kill a little bit of you.

Kill you

Kill me

Be

Don’t ever fight the desire, see the desire and validate validate validate until you die too

While trying to get my 4 year old son to sleep last night he said something that warms a mindful daddy’s heart; “Daddy, I want to go to sleep, but my mind won’t shut up”. Other parents might be alarmed that this points to some psychological issue, but that’s because they can’t see the wakefulness in this statement, because they long ago lost sight of the fact that they are not their thoughts or their minds.

I said, “I know what you mean, but there is one thing I want you to know if you don’t remember anything else I ever tell you and that is that you are not your mind. You are separate and don’t have to be controlled by it. You are not your thoughts.”

I sat quietly as he let his mind eventually quiet down and sleep, happy knowing that at 4 there is still a separation to be recognized.

As you progress things begin to dawn on you that never did before.

Time will be the death of us all.

Maybe my binge drinking alcoholic uncle is actually trying to kill “the self” and not himself, his identity or physical self. It’s doubtful, but possible. What is more likely is that he’s trying to escape the same suffering we all experience, but using his mechanism of choice. Unfortunately his choice kills him and all those around him, by slowly destroying our will to care.

The really interesting thing about my uncle is that he’s studied Buddhism. He even had to detox once in a Buddhist monastery, but he still is fast asleep.

I often find myself thinking of ways to user Buddhism to solve problems I encounter in my life or for others, but its not something you can apply to someone. The very act of thinking about it means I’ve already defeated my purpose.

Slowing things down.

One aspect of awakening is that you mind less waiting for things or taking a longer route. You still get impatient and annoyed, but you can see that emotion, watch it and it then disappears and you are free to live in the moment. Its almost like you become two people and one is observing the other and providing guidance to peace. Essentially though, the ego is dissolving or lessening its grip or hold on you.

Image by midlander1231 via Flickr

My Father has always been a sigher, but like so many other things in my life as I reach my mid-40s, I find I am in many ways adopting his habits. Sighing is one of them and its scary how much I do it. In order to reduce the amount of sighing I do, because of the severe levels of annoyance it causes for those with whom I work and love, I am working on seeing the sigh and expanding upon it as a meditation. To me the big sigh whether relief or out of exasperation is really a way for us to center ourselves. The old adage of take a breath is related to our natural inclination to meditate and observe our thoughts, that we’ve spent so many centuries annihilating.

So, sigh I will and I will sigh with vigor and consciousness in order to observe my need for meditation in that moment. That sigh is a call for mindfulness and to see it is to be mindful. What a relief… sigh.

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Dance with spirit and the body will follow.
Mia Michaels

Rarely have I danced without mind in my life. When I say I can’t dance, it’s because I’ve not succeeded at dancing mindlessly. The few times I’ve danced

without mind was in private without anyone to see. Of course it’s much easier to be mindful when we are all alone separated from others perceptions or rather our perception of their perception of us.

Ultimately though even perceptions are meaningless. All of our current “reality” is based upon false perceptions. Perceiving is the root of all of our suffering and evil. Observe and understand that your perceptions are unreal. Your current existence is one of compounding hollow perceptions. See each of them and follow each to the next below that one and so on. Question and devour each until your foundation built on perceptions collapses and implodes into itself.

What’s left?